Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Tourism in Thailand and as I have discussed at length on this channel, the tourism situation here has been really tough to watch. 

I have got clients that are in this industry; I have got friends that are in this industry; it has been very difficult to watch. Depending on what you read and the statistics you are looking at, but what we have quoted on this channel before, the Tourism Council of Thailand itself has noted that between 2 to 3 million jobs have been lost in the tourism sector in Thailand. There are knock-on effects to that. There are jobs that are lost further down the line from those jobs that are a little bit more difficult to quantify but clearly it is bad; it has had a terrible impact on the situation here in Thailand. My heart goes out to those who have been displaced as a result of this overall situation. 

A recent article from the Bangkok Post print edition, that was Bangkok Post, on May 8th, 2021. The article is titled: Phuket to Reopen as Planned, I thought this excerpt was notable. Quoting directly: "The hope is that Phuket "Sandbox" demonstrates to the rest of the world that the resort island is safe to visit while at the same time assuring local Thais that the country's Tourism Industry is on the road to recovery, said Tossaporn Sirisamphan, Chairman of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, TAT Board." I certainly hope that the Chairman is correct that it does show to the world what we can do here. I think Thailand up to this point has done a pretty good job. 

Now I know recently there has been this outbreak here in Bangkok especially, and folks are down in the mouth about the way that things are going but as I was discussing with somebody the other day, I mean our numbers here in Thailand are still considered low, in fact pretty substantially low by International standards. Again not to get into that too deeply but I don't think it is wrong to keep hope alive and I certainly for me in my heart of hearts, I hope we will see tourism start to turn around and hopefully some of the initiatives that they are trying to put in place will vest some confidence in folks about tourism here in Thailand in the future. Hopefully, hopefully by New Year’s, going into 2022 we can say at that point, we have well and truly put the worst of this behind us.